call me Thor, call me Raiden, call me goddamn Zeus

JACK

Jack nods once, selecting a couple of pills and sachet of something else, opting to leave the dreamdust alone for now. Having made his choice he packages the rest swiftly away, setting it to one side and reaching for an empty glass tumbler. "Swallow these whole with the water," he instructs, nodding at the tumbler that has already filled itself with cool, clear liquid. "Then I'll mix the powder into a drink - it'll be bitter, but it'll help." Something for the pain and something to rest - an ideal concoction for when the Captain has had a bumpy ride of it, and so hopefully it will work for her as well.

As she says she'll be fine, though, he can't stop the laugh from scoffing out of his chest. "I know," he says in a low voice. "If you weren't gonna be fine, I'd have set the whole Exchange on fire." He makes it sound like something mundane, like something that would just be, because in Jack's mind that's exactly how it is.

But while she wars with herself, the Captain at least knows which side of things he falls on, and once she's taken the pills he guides her to sit against the edge of his desk so he can get a proper look at the dressing, fingers threading carefully through her hair to keep it back from the stark white bandage. "I should've seen it comin'," he mutters, a strange combination of bitterness and care.

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

time to roll the dice, you know i'm the type

The pills look small and unimpressive for the way her head feels, but she tips them into her mouth without ceremony and follows them with the water in a single, decisive swallow. The bitterness he promises can come later; for now she obeys without argument, trusting the way she trusts his hand at the wheel in tight waters. At his casual mention of burning the Exchange to ash, her gaze lifts to him through her lashes, dark and bright at once. There is something feral in the look she gives him, something pleased and deeply affectionate in equal measure, as though the promise of ruin on her behalf is the most natural offering in the world. The pain throbs, yes, but that steady, dangerous devotion of his cuts through it like clean wind.

When he guides her to sit on the edge of the desk she goes, bracing her palms against the wood as he steps closer. His fingers move through her hair with careful precision, parting red strands to examine the white bandage, and even through the ache she registers how steady he is; how the same hands that can split a pier with lightning are now gentle against her scalp.

"I should have been stronger," she says quietly, frustration threading the words. Her lip curls faintly as she stares past him, nails biting into the edge of the desk hard enough to mark it. She is a galleon. She has borne cannon fire and collisions, celebrations where bottles shattered harmlessly against her hull in drunken triumph. She has been rammed, boarded, scarred, and still floated. And yet a godsdamn bottle, thrown without thought, has undone her on a pier like some fragile thing.

time to risk my life, not afraid to die, i'm a straight up villain

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"You'll be stronger now," Jack says easily, the ghost of a smirk on his face. As if to prove it, he ducks his head a little into the lanternlight, turning so the glow catches on his right temple where a faint scar still shimmers if one looks the right way. "We all gotta take our first bottle to the head, love," he says, shrugging and straightening back up. "Besides, ain't like you got anythin' to compare it against. I'd prob'ly not shrug it off the way you would if I was hit by a fuckin' cannon," he points out.

Sighing out a breath that seems to drag much of the tension in his shoulders with it, Jack finishes his inspection - the dressing is still clean and the wound has stopped bleeding - and punctuates it with a warm brush of his lips against her forehead, fingers hooking gently beneath her chin.

"That bein' said, I'm glad you're alright." Small words for something that looms large beneath the facade of his nonchalance.

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

time to roll the dice, you know i'm the type

The Ark exhales a little too sharply at that, the sound almost a huff, because she doesn't want to be stronger, she wants to be strong; strong enough that no foolish hand with bad aim can interrupt her storm. But when he dips his head into the lanternlight her eyes follow, drawn to the faint silver at his temple. She studies it, gaze softening despite herself, and something in her irritation shifts. "I didn’t realize I’d be weak in this body," she says, quieter now, the edge dulled by a touch of sulk rather than fury and for a fleeting, reckless second she imagines demanding he send her back into her hull, back into timber and iron where she could ram herself into the nearest vessel and prove her superiority. Prove that she is not so easily felled by flying glass and bad luck.

The thought flickers and fades as his lips brush her forehead, and she sighs at the contact, tension bleeding from her in a slow release. The black water inside her does not vanish, but it smooths at the edges, no longer choking and opaque. When his fingers hook gently beneath her chin and lift her gaze, she meets his eyes with something rawer than anger, and without fully deciding to, she pushes off the desk and steps straight into him, arms wrapping around his chest in a tight embrace. It is not calculated, not seductive, not sharpened by mischief; it's firm and close and surprisingly gentle, her cheek pressing against him as though anchoring herself there. For all the violent flashes that had danced through her thoughts on the pier, for all the instinct to break and strike and drown, this is something else entirely.

She doesn't have a name for it, knows only that when the bottle struck and the sea inside her went still, there had been a moment where she was nowhere; a dark stretch where she did not feel him, did not feel herself, and the brush against her own mortality was startling. The idea lingers, sharp as broken glass, not only of her own undoing but of the inverse; of him gone, of his voice no longer brushing along her decks, of his hands no longer steady at her seams. She tightens her arms slightly around him, silent, murderous thoughts banked but not gone, the new and unfamiliar weight of mortality settling against her ribs as she stands there and holds him, realizing how badly she never wanted to leave him, or him her, and just how much of that now seemed out of her control.

time to risk my life, not afraid to die, i'm a straight up villain

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"People are a lot flimsier than ships," Jack says casually, because whilst he wouldn't call her weak in any sense of the word, he knows she's felt it when bodies break after taking a tumble from her top mast. She's experienced the scrape of flesh and bone during a keel haul, she knows the hiss of a rope burn and the way shins crack against crates. He doesn't try to hide his smile at the brief flare of indignance, the urge to return to timber and canvas and cannon, because in all likelihood he'd feel the same in her shoes.

Stepping back a fraction just before she slips off the desk, the Captain's surprise is a brief flurry of cold air that whips around the cabin before settling. The Ark winds herself around him like a warm weight on his chest, and for a man unused to being embraced, it takes him a second to remember how to respond, to remember that it actually feels good when he lets it.

His arms close around her in turn, fingers feathering through stray curls of red, though as he senses the yawning pit of existential dread open in her mind, he can't help himself - Jack laughs. Not unkindly; if anything, it's the sort of laugh that suggests he's already figured that part out. "Didn't I tell you earlier, you're the only ship I'm goin' down on?" He raises his eyebrows. "Neither of us are goin' anywhere if I have my way 'bout it. Don't go worryin' about death, love - we're better'n that."

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

time to roll the dice, you know i'm the type

"You’re telling me," she huffs softly, and though she'd known just how easily flesh could yield and snap, she simply hadn't expected her own to do the same.

The cold air that flurries through the cabin barely registers to her; she does not flinch from it or try to interpret it. She has never waited to be invited to take what she wants, and she doesn't start now. If she needs him close, she takes him close and lets him decide how to hold her in return. When his arms come around her, when his fingers slip through her hair with a familiarity that is almost reverent, her own hands tighten, not fragile but possessive, as though staking claim to something that is already hers. The softness in her embrace sharpens, not withdrawing but honing as she commits to the idea of survival.

The Ark draws in a slow breath and straightens in Jack's arms, chin lifting slightly as she studies his face. A crooked smirk that curves her mouth carries both challenge and resolve as she says, "train me. Train me the way you train." Her eyes search his, intent and unblinking. "I think I could’ve stopped that bottle. I think I could do a lot more if I knew how."

time to risk my life, not afraid to die, i'm a straight up villain

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

Jack can't recall his last time standing like this, sharing easy warmth with another person and letting himself be the ballast for someone else to find strength against. His exhaled sigh will be barely audible to The Ark, even as her arms tighten around him possessively, and he relaxes imperceptibly into her embrace. The Captain will not be owned by anyone but his ship; that much is all too clear now if it hasn't been so before, and as she straightens up he's already able to sense the resolve that ices over her mind.

"Train you the way I train?" he echoes, his smile catlike and amused. "You already got enough scars, love." Playfully said, Jack is nevertheless reluctant to throw her to the wolves the way he'd learned to hold his own. That doesn't mean they can't hone their skills together though, and he offers her a steady nod. "I reckon you could too," he agrees about the bottle, not to mention her other skills. "Storms are in your blood same as they're in mine, I reckon. Just gotta find out how to tease 'em out."

And they will - later.

"No good tryin' right now though. That bump to the head is gonna play hell with your aim."

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

time to roll the dice, you know i'm the type

The Ark does not return Jack's smile. Instead, she fixes him with a clear, piercing stare, blue as open water under noon sun, sharp with something that is not quite anger but not far from it. He has had years—decades—to temper himself into what he is. Scars layered over scars, reflex sharpened to knife-edge, and here she stands in a body that can be felled by stray glass, told to wait. The word grates; waiting belongs to tide tables and harbour masters, not to her.

She tosses her head like an indignant mare, the motion proud and abrupt, and immediately regrets it when the world lurches and the wound at her hairline flares hot. She refuses to let the pain show more than the faintest tightening at the corners of her eyes. "All the better to practice," she insists, chin high. "If I learn to aim when I’m injured, it'll never slow me down." The logic is thin even to her own ears, she knows it, just as she knows she is arguing against a wall that is both sensible and immovable.

Her shoulders dip a fraction as she exhales through her nose, the defiance softening into a reluctant concession. The idea of weakness tastes bitter, the idea of waiting tastes worse. "Okay then," she says, a touch petulant despite herself, gaze still locked on his. "What am I supposed to do now?" Not tomorrow, not when she was better, but now, with her head throbbing and her pride smarting and the storm in her blood denied an outlet.

time to risk my life, not afraid to die, i'm a straight up villain

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

Jack has to bite the inside of his cheek until it hurts to keep the smile from cocking up one side of his mouth - indignant and prideful and everything he's always known his ship to be even before she was flesh and blood, it's still something to see a lesson in humility play out in real time. "You ain't wrong," he agrees. "An' if it weren't the middle of the fuckin' night I'd say we could go out an' let you shoot bottles off the pier with your magic, but that fight is still spillin' through the Exchange, far as I know."

And however much train the way you train he might be considering, the Captain has some very strong opinions about The Ark getting beaned with a glass bottle for the second time in as many hours. Weakness and concession aside, Jack carefully tucks her hair back behind her ear to glance at the dressing a final time before he's satisfied with the inspection. "Now?" he echoes.

"Love, I think you already know that answer." She's witnessed it in this very cabin dozens of time; when Jack is too banged up or strung out or insane to function, he holes himself up and sleeps. Gets drunk too sometimes - a lot of times - but mostly it's the former. "You go sit - I'll mix you that drink," he suggests, nodding back to the bunk.

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

time to roll the dice, you know i'm the type

If he were the sort of man one could slip past with a feigned errand and a sweet smile, she might have claimed she needed to speak with Murphy and vanished back toward the Exchange to finish what had been started. The thought flickers through her anyway—sharp, bright, unapologetic—and the faint, haughty lift of her eyes across his face carries not a shred of remorse for it. 

But she huffs instead, turning away with reluctant obedience and crossing the cabin to sink down onto his bunk. The mattress dips and groans beneath her weight, familiar in a way that is almost mocking; she has felt him collapse there countless times, bruised and bloodied and stubbornly alive. The echo of that memory does nothing to soothe her. It only reminds her that this is the part she dislikes most; this stillness, the enforced pause.

She leans back against the headboard with an irritated sigh, one hand rising briefly toward her bandage before thinking better of it. From there she watches him move about the cabin, steady and practiced as he measures and mixes, and something in her chest tightens in a way she does not name. "You should have asked Rae to make one of my arms a cannon," she mutters under her breath.

time to risk my life, not afraid to die, i'm a straight up villain

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

Not trying to hide his amusement now as he feels the defiance all but roll out of her, Jack mixes one of the powders with another tumbler of cool water and steps back over to offer it out. "You could still ask," he points out, "though I reckon with enough practice you'll be as good as firin' cannonballs at people anyway." They might be spheres of ice or bolts of lightning or gods know what else, but hopefully it makes up for continuing to have hands.

"An' if you get too restless, ain't nothin' stoppin' you from hangin' out in the hull for a bit," he points out, tapping a fond hand against the beam over their heads. She is The Ark - she's the ship and the ship is her, and if she needs time to properly stretch sails and feel the cut of the ocean as they cross the Arclight, Jack is hardly going to deny her.

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

time to roll the dice, you know i'm the type

The Ark takes the tumbler, peering down at the cloudy swirl, and, wrinkling her nose, she lifts it to sniff and immediately shoots him a look. "Why don’t you at least make your medicines taste good?" she demands, as if this is a grave failing on the part of humans altogether. Nevertheless, she tips it back in a single swallow, determined not to let the bitterness linger, and only when the liquid is gone does she cough sharply against the back of her hand, eyes watering faintly. "The water we kept onboard in Torchline was never bitter."

When he suggests she sink back into hull and timber, the idea tempts her more than she lets on. She can already feel the familiar breadth of herself beneath them, the sweep of deck and mast and sail waiting to be inhabited fully. For a reckless moment she imagines casting off west without clearance, cutting clean through the Arclight on her own terms, letting salt wind scour the restlessness from her until they're back in Torchline where wounds can be cleansed and fights can be continued. The thought is sharp and intoxicating, but it is also, even to her, suspect.

She narrows her eyes slightly at the impulse, recognizing that the fog still clinging to her thoughts may be steering her poorly. Sailing off unannounced or plotting clever evasions of a telepath is less brilliance and more concussion, she thinks. So it is that with a decisive little breath she stands and instead and begins to peel off her blood-stained shirt, the fabric sticking faintly where it has dried.  She glances at him then, sly and bright again despite the dull throb in her head. "If I do go into the ship," she says, fingers already working at the clasp of her bra, "you could place the coin half on a ledge. I could knock it off when I want to come back." The idea is practical, almost sweet in its ingenuity, before she almost immediately imagines rigging a glass of water above his bed that she could similarly knock off to get his attention.  The threat is playful, edged with restored mischief, even as the medicine begins to creep through her system and soften the sharpest corners of the storm she’s been trying so hard to outrun.

time to risk my life, not afraid to die, i'm a straight up villain

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"Are you blamin' me for the entire plethora of medicine that Caido has managed to concoct?" Jack asks with a smirk. "Mine tastes plenty good, it just leaves you with a bad head or a dependency." He gestures to the liquor (and the dreamdust still lurking in the package), leaning against the edge of his desk to watch her take it like a trooper regardless. Some quiet flicker of pain comes and goes in his face at the mention of Torchline, and he shrugs a little too casually.

Luckily there's plenty of thought for him to mull over in her own mind, vast as the ship they stand upon and wild as the deeper waters. Scoffing, Jack raises his eyebrows. "A ship sailin' with no crew or anyone to captain her," he remarks. "An' you wanted Rae to just give you a cannon for an arm."

As she rises to remove her shirt Jack is there as if it's second nature. Because it is, ultimately, regardless of what form she happens to take; he helps to guide the blood-sticky fabric from her pale skin, takes over to unclasp her bra, works any ties loose or buckles free until she can stand comfortably in little more than her own skin.

"Yeah? I'll set it on the edge of the desk," he offers of the coin. "Just list sharp to the port side an' she'll tumble. For the record, though, you don't need to throw a glass of water over me to get my attention."

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

time to roll the dice, you know i'm the type

The Ark lifts one brow at him, slow and unapologetically cocky, and meets his gaze head on. "Yes," she says with utter indignance, only used to being brought the very best that Caido had to offer. There is no apology in her for wanting more either, for wanting to be sharper, faster, less breakable than she is, such that she'll roll her eyes lightly at his remark about cannon arms and empty ships, but the gesture is fond rather than dismissive. Wanting to be better has never something she'd been polite about, because it's never something he's ever been polite about with either of them.

As Jack steps in to help her, she lets him without hesitation; the blood-sticky fabric peels away under his careful hands, and she stands still as he works at clasps and ties, his fingers deft and familiar. Layer by layer he frees her until she is bare, long red hair spilling over her shoulders in a bright cascade that veils only a portion of her breasts without truly concealing anything. The curve of her hips, the line of her thighs, the strength in the set of her stance remain entirely unhidden, and she feels neither shy nor self-conscious beneath his gaze; this body is new, but it is still hers. Still his. 

Her eyes flick toward the desk when he mentions the coin, and she nods approvingly, lips curving into a sly, feline smirk before shrugging one shoulder and moving backward toward the bunk, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight when she reaches it. "You have always listened before," she agrees, meaning when she was timber and beam and wheel beneath his hands. "But it might be harder now that I have more complicated thoughts to communicate." Her gaze glints darkly before she reaches back to press her palm against the wall behind the headboard, fingers splayed against the wood in a way that makes her shiver with the echo of sensation she feels. "Maybe we could install something," she muses, still smirk. "A switch I can flip." Something tactile, something made of wood. (wink) "I'm sure Murphy would appreciate me not rattling the whole hull just to get your attention."

time to risk my life, not afraid to die, i'm a straight up villain

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3